"There was really no light in the forest," says Campbell, "so we used rim lighting for everything. The rigging was huge. We used HMIs and tungsten sources. With the rim lights, I was able to light at f8 to f11 using 20Ks in pairs." He adds that so much rigging was used for lighting this sequence that it was difficult to keep it out of the shot.
Smoot recalls, "We pushed the film one stop [achieving a higher stop] to increase depth of field, rating it at 1000 ASA and using an LLD filter for partial color correction. We also mixed daylight sources with tungsten sources to create a pleasing, surreal effect colorwise. There was a slight contrast increase due to the push in the lab, producing a little more snap and a pleasing image on the large screen. The natural backlight with added smoke effects [when we had the light] gave us a deeper background with cool shafts."
Notes Melton, "There was a rectangular rig suspended from a construction crane that held a circular Skypan for lighting. We turned it off when we filmed upwards, but it was still visible. We digitally eliminated the Skypan in that scene so that when the audience looks through the trees they only see the sky."
To effectively convey a child’s POV and make the redwood forest and its inhabitants appear larger than life, a reduced interocular was necessary. "If you were a mouse," details Melton, "your eyes would be closer together and the world would look much larger." These scenes were shot with the Iwerks 8-perf/65mm dual-camera rig designed by Hines.
The Iwerks 3-D rig features variable convergence ranging from infinity to 4’. The adjustable interocular ranges from 0 to 4 1/2". These adjustments can be made on the fly from a wireless remote while the camera is rolling. A sync box electronically interlocks the two cameras, which can be removed from the platform very quickly. The Iwerks 3-D rig will also allow for use of 15/65 cameras and an array of lenses from 40mm to 250mm.
Hines designed a twin-camera 3-D rig in the early 1980s for Walt Disney Productions for use on the 5/70 3-D film Magic Journeys. At the time, Don Iwerks was manager of technical development and services for Disney. Shot with twin 65mm cameras, Magic Journeys was a landmark film that revolutionized stereoscopic filmmaking and established large-format 3-D as a viable attraction for special theatrical venues.
"The interocular that was used on the forest sequence of Journey of Man was as little as 1 1/4 inches," says Hines. "One scene with a spiderweb is in the foreground required a greatly reduced interocular. They were dealing with such a huge range of subject distances that they needed a rig that had adjustable interaxial."
Following the forest sequence, an interlude commences in which a performer whirls a flaming cube atop a mountain at night. This sequence was shot in December at the Valley of Fire State Park in the Nevada desert, and weather was a constant problem. High winds, a very low wind-chill factor and a snowstorm interrupted filming.
The Statue Act that follows was filmed at a Renaissance-style reflecting pool at a private estate in San Mateo, California. When the crew arrived at the estate, they drained the pool, scrubbed it clean and refilled it with water and ecologically safe black dye that gave the water a more reflective, dramatic look. Camera track laid under the water allowed for greater maneuverability around a lily-pad platform built for the performers.
After the Banquine sequence, Journey of Man closes with a finale at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The crew watered down the street in front of the gate to give it a more dramatic look. Lighting this nighttime sequence required tons of rigging. "We had many instruments tucked around every corner to light this scene," recalls Smoot, adding that the crew replaced the architectural lighting around the site with lights they could control with a dimmer. The sequence closes with a computer-generated sun rising behind the gate. "It is a new dawn against the barren monument of the Brandenburg Gate," says Melton. "The story comes full circle to show that the journey continues."